But, with affected yawnings at the clofe, 2585 Seem'd to require her natural repose: bles; Peter, with great coft as well as art, had contrived pickle proper for houses, gardens, towns, men, women, children, and cattle; wherein he could preferve them as found as infects in amber. Now this pickle to the tafte, the fmell, and the fight, appeared exactly the fame, with what is in common fervice for beef, and butter, and herrings, (and has been often that way applied with great fuccefs) but for its many fovereign virtues was quite a different thing. For Peter would put in a certain quantity of his powder pimperlimpimp, after which it never failed of fuccefs. The operation was performed by Spargefaction, in a proper time of the moon. The patient who was to be pickled, if it were a houfe, would infallibly be preserved from all fpiders, rats, and weazels. If the party affected were a dog, he fhould be exempt from mange, madnefs, and hunger. It alfo infallibly took away all fcabs and lice, and fcald heads from children, never hindering the patient from any duty, either at bed or board. But of all Peter's rarities, he moft valued a certain fet of bulls, whofe race was by great fortune preferved in a lineal defcent from thofe that guarded the golden fleece, though fome who pretended to obferve them curiously, doubted the breed had not been kept entirely chafte; becaufe they had degenerated from their ancestors in fome qualities, and had acquired others, very extraordinary, but a foreign mixture. The bulls of Colchos are recorded to have brazen feet; but whether it happened by ill pafture, and running, by an allay from intervention of other parents, from stolen intrigues: whether a weakness in their progenitors had impaired the feminal virtue; or by a decline neceffary through a long courfe of time, the originals of nature being depraved in thefe latter finful ages of the world: whatever was the caufe, 'tis certain that Lord Peter's bulls were extremely vitiated, by the ruft of time in the metal of their lead, However, the terrible roaring peculiar to their lineage was preferved; as likewife that faculty of breathing out fire from their noftrils, which, notwithstanding, many of their detractors took to be a feat of art, and to be nothing fo terrible as it appeared, proceeding only from their usual courfe of diet, which was that of fquibs and crackers,” Pope, it is faid, ufed to mention this poem as the most correct fpecimen of Dryden's verfification. I must own I cannot affent to this opinion. He tells us himself that he intended to give the majestic turn of heroic poefy to the first part. In this defign he has woefully mifcarried. The perfpicuity and plaufibility of For now the streaky light began to peep; his reafonings, however falfe and futile, fhew a great command of language. This poem our author intended as a defence for his fudden converfion to popery, especially after his having written the Religio Laici, where fuch oppofite opinions were maintained and enforced. Whether this converfion was the effect of pure truth and conviction, inuft be left to the great fearcher of our hearts to determine; but fuch a change in so abject a flatterer, would naturally be imputed to mercenary motives. It is remarkable that Congreve, in his laboured and elegant defence of his friend's character, fpeaks not a fyllable on the fubject. The converfions of two greater men to popery, that of Henry IV. and Marshall Turenne, were reckoned interested and infincere. The following very fevere lines are preferved in the State Poems, on this occafion: At all religions to the laft from first, Thou still haft rail'd, and then efpous'd the worst z Ver. 2588. And fetting fars admonish'd Dr. J. VARTON. both to sleep.] Dii Patrii Indigetes, et Romule, Veftaque Mater, Virg. Georg. 1. "On the 10th of June, 1688, the queen was fuddenly feized with labour-pains, and delivered of a fou, who was bap tized by the name of James, and declared Prince of Wales. All the catholics and friends of James were tranfported with the most extravagant joy at the birth of this child; while great part of the nation confoled themselves with the notion that it was altogether fuppofititious. They carefully collected a variety of circumstances, upon which this conjecture was founded; and though they were inconfiftent, contradictory, and inconclufive, the inference was fo agreeable to the views and paffions of the people, that it made an impreffion which, in all probability, will never be totally effaced. Dr. Burnet, who feems to have been at uncommon pains to establish this belief, and to have confulted all the Whig nurfes in England upon the fubject; first pretends to demonftrate, that the queen was not with child; fecondly, that she was with child, but mifcarried; thirdly, that a child was brought into the queen's apartment in a warmingpan; fourthly, that there was no child at all in the room; fifthly, that the queen actually bore a child, but it died that fame day; fixthly, that the fuppofititious child had not the fits; feventhly, that it had the fits, of which it died at Richmond: therefore the Chevalier de St. George muft be the fruit of four different impoftures." Smollett's History of England. DERRICK. Ver. 1 Our vows are heard] It might be expected, that a late and zealous convert to popery would join in the general triumph and exultation, felt by all his brethren, on the birth of a prince who might be the means of perpetuating the Catholic |